Thursday, November 20, 2008

Okay, GC also announced that Feral Attack Power is going away, and instead of FAP we're going to calculate the AP gain based on the DPS of the weapon:

FERAL ATTACK POWERWe are no longer going to have weapons in the game which improve feral attack power. Instead, your attack power will scale based on the dps of the item. Practically speaking this means almost no change for any gear you currently use -- you should not see your dps change. What it does mean is that we can create the occasional dps staff that could be used by druids or hunters (or very undergeared warriors), and that Ferals may occasionaly use two-handed dps maces. We are going to convert all existing Feral staves over to this new system (but again, you should not notice any change to your dps). We are also adjusting the UI so that when druids look at these weapons, you will see what the improvement will be to your damage in forms. This does not mean we are no longer going to create bear and cat weapons, just that those weapons will be slightly less niche than they are now.

This is a huge nerf, and I have the ...

Wait a second, this isn't a nerf at all. This is actually pretty awesome. But the more important question is - what does this mean to you? What gear might change? What should you go ninjaloot?

For starters, this beauty becomes one of the best feral weapons in the game:Inevitable Defeat. Stam, agility, strength, and a ton of expertise - combined with a great DPS value. It doesn't have as much stamina as Origin of Nightmares and not as much agi as The Undeath Carrier, but the expertise is stellar for tanking and it would make an excellent threat weapon for bears. Another nice benefit is that something like Titansteel Destroyer becomes a good weapon too, though probably not as good due to the lack of agility. Still, if you're rich and need a starting weapon, that's not the worst thing you could do. Want something a bit lower end? Well, the Mojo-Masked crusher is a pretty nice drop and should have high DPS. A bit easier to get, the Argent Skeleton Crusher should be decent too, though again the lack of agi makes this subpar.

Based on comments from Jelement and Mitch, here are the values of what the DPS should be for the feral staves. The conversion is simple: the DPS of a staff will be FAP/14 + 55.

Mostly what makes me excited about this is that they can start designing weapons that are built for actual tanking. Why? Because both death knights and druids can use 2h maces, and both want to have tanking stats on those items. It'll be possible to get craftable weapons that don't suck as well, which will be nice, but the shared pool and what could be allowed there is really what thrills me.

22 comments:

That's one of my bigger questions too. The general idea is that right now they're basically going to take the DPS of the weapon, subtract the 'base' DPS for a northrend-level 2h weapon (the caster DPS, in other words), and then actually calculate what the FAP will be from that difference. And from that, give you that much FAP.

What I worry about is that they'll just have a straight weapon damage->cat/bear damage modifier. Which would skip things like savage roar and predatory strikes. In which case, nerf city.

But at least right now I have faith that they won't fuck this up too much.

Grumpy Misanthrope - that's a good point. It may very well be that they'll screw this up too, but I doubt it; the math is really simple and is basically a conversion they're already doing. At the very least, I think that if they screw it up they'll fix it soon.

I don't have that faith for bears, but I do for fixing weapon damage. Odd how that is.

Anyway, it's silly to get worked up over changes that you have no idea about. If they provide the math or the actual change, that's one thing. But if they say 'we're going to fix it' I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Haha, I'm sure I don't trust them much either, but this does seem to be too easy to mess up . . . but I have one discrepancy right now.

My current weapon (Jailor's Baton) actually has much lower DPS at the moment than anything else. Unless wowhead is wrong (and it very well could be) the Jailer's Baton has 1,267 FAP and 75.1 DPS and the Staff of the Sorrowful Chieftain has 1,267 FAP and 97.p DPS >.<

But otherwise the numbers seem to be in line. And I'm going to assume I'll get a better weapon than the baton over the weekend anyhow, so it would be a moot point for me, lol.

But for the most part I cheer on more of a choice rather than the wide open BC progression (/facepalm) of EARTHWARDEN < WILDFURY - PILLAR

Kalon - your comparison between items such as Inevitable Defeat and Origin of Nightmares seems to be missing something. If we go to weapon DPS in place of FAP, all of the existing weapons with FAP will have their DPS increased. Right now any FAP weapon is getting the caster/FAP penalty to the listed DPS, which should be refunded with this change. Since Inevitable Defeat and Origin of Nightmares are both iLevel 213 epics, the DPS of Origin of Nightmares should change to 203.7 as well.

As for what it does to our item selection, just looking at the iLevel 213 non-PVP gear, it looks like we'd add Inevitable Defeat and The Jawbone to our list of usable feral weapons, and in the iLevel 200 category it looks like it will open up about six 2H maces to be viable for ferals. With armor on these weapons being removed as well, I guess their value will depend on how the points spent on armor will be reallocated.

I probably should put the actual conversion value from FAP to DPS in the post, since it's well-known at this point. The formula for FAP to DPS is:FAP/14 + 55

The actual DPS of the weapon doesn't matter right now, but of course it'll be changed in that next patch.

So for the Jailer's baton, you're looking at 1267/14 + 55, or 145.5 DPS. Same with Staff of the Sorrowful Chieftain. I'll go ahead and amend the post to indicate what the DPS values are for various common staves - that should make it easier to compare apples to apples.

I'll be amending the post soon to have the 'actual' DPS values for the FAP gear, but you're right - Origin of Nightmares has the same DPS, roughly, as Inevitable Defeat. There's a reason I didn't mention it; basically all staves and 2h weapons of the same ilvl are very likely to have the same DPS, so as long as they're the same ilvl we can just compare the stats on the weapon themselves. I didn't make that very clear though.

I'm very curious how the armor will be refunded on the staves as well. Armor's pretty cheap, itemization wise, but it'll still be something. My suspicion is that the tanking staves will remain the best tanking item post-change, but the difference will be fairly close.

Following up on the expected DPS list - the current non-FAP weapons have their DPS calculated based on their iLevel - for iLevel 213 items all 2H melee weapons are either 203.6 or 203.7, so I don't think we'll see 203.9 for the reworked feral items. I guess what I'm getting at is non-FAP weapons don't have their DPS calculated by running them through a FAP conversion, so we should just expect the DPS of our current FAP weapons to return to that of other 2H melee weapons with the same iLevel.

Here's an interesting thing I noticed while looking into a lot of these numbers. DPS is supposed to be a factor of iLevel, and then you have a DPS penalty to a weapon when it is granted FAP or spellpower, so two weapons with the same FAP and iLevel should have the same current DPS listed. But Origin of Nightmares and The Undeath Carrier are 137.6 and Staff of the Plaguehound is 143.0. It makes me wonder why OoN and TUC are being penalized an additional 5.4 DPS over SotP. It will be interesting to see what happens, though I suspect we'll just see 203.6/7 from them all when they're redone.

First of all, with the removal of armour on staves my Wildfury Greastaff will be replaced by Staff of the Forest Lord for tanking. The latter has more Stamina, and according to RatingBuster the Dodge Rating just gives me an advantage of 0.09% over the Agility at level 73 (yeah, I'm a little behind, since I'm currently skilling Leatherworking on my Hunter).

This means that we can use the same weapon for cat and bear, as long as it has fairly high Stamina and Agility.

Kalons point is a good one as well. Not only do we have the option for a lot of two-handed maces now, but those will also be nice for Death Knights as well, which probably means that we might see more of those in the future.

One thing I simply don't understand is, why they didn't do it that way several years ago, just like the fact that you don't switch to humanoid when you pick something up in feral form now (to name just one thing that was long over due).

While in theory we can use the same staff for dps and tanking, in practice I suspect there will be definite 'tanking' weapons and 'dps' weapons out there. While Wildfury Greatstaff is going to have its armor removed, we don't know what will replace it. My guess would be something like agility, which would make it better for tanking than staff of the forest lord. So keep an eye out for how those items are modified and check back. Chances are something that is itemized well for cats (with lots of str, crit rating) won't be itemized for bears (lots of expertise, agi, and dodge).

Mekias - thanks as well. And yeah, this is a very simple change that was suggested sometime before beta...of TBC. I honestly don't know why they didn't do it before. It's easy for them, it makes it easier on druids...what gives? Probably some UI work.

It's a bit more than .06%. It's be a 6% loss normally (from factoring in Survival of the Fittest) but you also have to factor in blessing of kings. It would end up being a 16.6% loss in AP if it was a straight str->2AP conversion.

But I'd be okay with that if it meant more people could use the things and more were made.

The way it'll work is that for weapons with FAP, their FAP will basically stay the same - though they'll say what the DPS is like I listed. For weapons without FAP currently, they'll convert to FAP.

Your FAP shouldn't change at all, and your overall damage shouldn't change at all. And remember that a weapon damage is the base damage - which is multiplied by shred, mangle, and rake. So it won't just be a 127 DPS weapon, that'll just be the base damage you can expect.

One thing you've mentioned but haven't fully expanded on is the new competition for these weapons. All feral weapons suddenly became viable (though sometimes non-optimal) weapons for hunters, warriors, and death knights, while we've only gained a couple of 2H maces.

If druids were suddenly able to use 2H swords, axes and polearms this would be a different story, but it has been explicitly stated that this is not happening.

The result is that druids suddenly face much greater competition for the few weapons they want, while getting only a few new options to choose from.

Gear consolidation is great - more items that work for everyone. But in a non-symmetrical situation such as this, druids are clearly losing out.

One thing you've mentioned but haven't fully expanded on is the new competition for these weapons. All feral weapons suddenly became viable (though sometimes non-optimal) weapons for hunters, warriors, and death knights, while we've only gained a couple of 2H maces.

Yep, and that means there's going to be more competition for those items, hopefully. And that is great. One of the things that was awesome was that in our last Sunwell run before 3.0.2, Stanchion dropped. One of the things that sucked is that in our next run, Stanchion dropped. I don't believe that such an important slot like a weapon should ever be only wanted by one spec of one class (and in this case, one subspec of one spec of one class). Having more specs be able to use the same gear means less wasted loot, and it also potentially means they can increase the drop rate. These are all good things for the health of the game.

And you forget - while the staves that ferals use can now be rolled on by hunters and the maces by DKs, the converse is true too. Right now it's not such a benefit, but it may be. Mostly, I hope it means less loot is wasted.

Cuer - thanks. And yeah, I'm confused about that since it directly contradicts an example he gave before. We'll see, I suppose - I hope they do remove the armor, since it'll make things more easily used by others. I won't cry too much if the armor stays, but one way or another the result is the same; some staves will be better for avoidance, some for threat, some for mitigation. And that's all good.

the problem with 1-handed weapons is their DPS. Take the best 1-h weapon a druid can currently use: Calamity's Grasp. It has an ilvl of 226, so it's already the best in the game that way - and it has a dps of 171.3. That's the equivalent of a 1628 FAP weapon. Compare to Journey's End and it's 2354 DPS, and you've got a lot of making up to do. Especially since mainhands tend to not have a lot of stats on them, since people that use them are expected to dual wield. And there aren't any real one handed maces of note for tanking either, so that's out. You'd need to make up that 700 FAP in addition to the stat loss - and you'd also need to make offhands that were basically shields or a second weapon but an off-hand thing which, well, only ferals would be interested in.

It's a kind of neat notion, and it means odd things like the Iron-Bound tome with its 200 armor wouldn't be so odd - but you would be introducing an item that no one else really wants. I don't like that all that much.

ThinkTank bio

About Me

Kalon likes playing tanks, no matter how hard he tries to fight it. He is not as hardcore as many but spends a lot of time thinking about WoW, and randomly rants about it now and then. He played formerly on the Argent Dawn (EU) server and was a founding member of Fire and Blood (Quel'Dorei) before joining Casually Serious, a guild devoted to hard core progression on only 8 hours of raiding time a week.
He is a devoted husband, father, and when he has the time programs software.